Chronicle/Cory MorseNigel Douglas, 28, uses marijuana in his Muskegon home. He is registered with the state of Michigan to use marijuana for medical purposes. Douglas suffers from cerebral palsy, back pain after being struck by a car when he was 14, and pain from a fractured ankle suffered in another accident. "When I smoke, it's easier to move," he said.
Air Force veteran Brian Martin served his country in undercover operations in Vietnam.

He survived two shootings in the line of duty as a deputy and a stabbing as a corrections officer in Florida.

He has had open heart surgery and repeated strokes, and attributes many
of his health issues, including diabetes, glaucoma and kidney problems,
to Agent Orange exposure. He also is battling cancer in various parts
of his body and takes pills for pain, blood pressure and depression,
among other things.

After recently turning to marijuana to relieve symptoms of glaucoma,
the 60-year-old does not understand the fuss over using it as
medication.

“Come on Michigan, get on the ball,” he said. “Don’t look at the bad side, look at the good it can do.

“My eye pressure is gone and I don’t have the tearing and watering in
my eyes. I did it because I am on all these narcotics through the
Veterans Administration. The narcotics tear your liver up and the drops
they gave me don’t do nothing.”

The department has a backlog of applications and is processing valid
ones received in early November, said James McCurtis, public
information officer for the Michigan Department of Community Health.

The Michigan Medical Marihuana Association does not track applications on a
per-county basis at this point, he said. Program officials did not
estimate how many applications might be received in the first year, but
McCurtis is not surprised by the interest.

“It’s something the people voted for and something they wanted,” he said.

‘One of the safest drugs on Earth’

Although the people wanted it, they are finding it difficult to locate
doctors willing to recommend them for medical marijuana. Many have
turned to doctors from other areas who organize clinics throughout the
state for patients seeking a doctor’s approval.

MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Statewide program statistics

• 15,253 applications received since April 6, 2009.

• 8,004 patient registrations issued.

• 3,356 caregiver registrations issued.

• 2,501 applications denied — most due to incomplete application or missing documentation.

• An average of 77 applications are received each day.

• Applications are reviewed within 15 days of receipt. Incomplete applications are denied and applicants are then notified of denial by certified and regular mail. At this time, the department is unable to process the valid cards within the statutory time frame with the resources available. Currently the staff is working on processing valid applications received early November. The statute currently allows for a copy of the application submitted to serve as a valid registry identification if the card is not issued within 20 days of its submission to the department.

— Source: Stats provided by the state of Michigan (www.michigan.gov) are through Jan. 27

Martin and Nigel Douglas are two of them. They both obtained a user
card through Robert “Bix” Kenewell, who runs Clinic for Compassionate
Care in Troy but travels statewide to see and certify patients.
Kenewell did not return several calls to his office.

At 28, Nigel Douglas has dealt with pain and limited mobility in his
legs for his entire life. Born with cerebral palsy, his physical
problems worsened after being hit by a car at age 14. The accident
cracked three discs in his lower back.

While attending culinary school in Chicago, he fell and fractured his ankle and never received proper treatment.

Even though Douglas said he feels like a 90-year-old man when he wakes
up, he does not complain about his health problems. He does not want
pity or prescription pills to deal with the pain. He prefers to use
medical marijuana and cannot wait for the day when it is socially
accepted.

“If the doctor has common sense, they know there’s nothing wrong with
it,” Douglas said. “Marijuana is one of the safest drugs, if you will,
on Earth, yet everyone is against it.”

Tired of taking so many narcotics, Martin began investigating medical
marijuana in the summer. He approached his doctor about recommending
him for a user card and the doctor tried to prescribe more pills, he
said.

Now that he is a registered user, Martin’s biggest problem is finding a
steady supply of marijuana, especially of the strain to treat glaucoma.
Martin favors cooperative grow operations or dispensaries so patients
have easier access to their medicine.

In places such as California and Colorado, where medical marijuana has
been legal for years, dispensaries and cannabis stores have become
commonplace.

Chronicle/Cory MorseBrian Martin, 60, is registered with the state of Michigan to use marijuana for medical purposes. Martin, who lives near Rothbury, suffers from multiple health problems, including cancer, diabetes and glaucoma. Martin said he was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, survived two shootings in the line of duty as a deputy and a stabbing as a corrections officer in Florida. He has also had open heart surgery and repeated strokes.In Michigan, the law allows a registered patient to grow up to 12
plants for personal use, or they can assign those rights to a
caregiver. Caregivers can cultivate marijuana for up to five patients,
for a total of 60 plants. The total rises to 72 if the caregiver is
also a patient.

One downfall with the current law is that users and caregivers are
afraid to grow plants in their home due to the risk involved, Martin
said.

“It’s kind of rough because it puts their homes in jeopardy,” he said. “Nobody wants to touch it, nobody wants to get into it.”

‘I believe I would go to jail’

Katie, 28, of Whitehall, has looked into applying for a patient user
card, but she is scared of all the unknown legal ramifications. Living
in a small town, she is not convinced law enforcement would leave her
alone and not monitor her home if her husband became her caregiver and
they started growing marijuana plants.

“Even if I was a card carrying medical marijuana user, do I believe I
would not be arrested? No. I believe I would go to jail,” she said.

Chronicle/Cory MorseBrian Martin's marijuana pipe. Martin is registered with the state to use marijuana for medical purposes.Katie, also leery to use her last name because of her family’s
business, said she and her husband are regular people who attend church
and her sister’s school sporting events.

She started having recurring outbreaks of the painful condition
shingles about seven months ago. Her family physician prescribed Darvocet and then wanted to give her the powerful fentanyl patch, which
can lead to dependence and in some cases death.

“The rate of addiction is astronomically high,” she said of Fentanyl.
“And Darvocets are another really heavy duty drug. I could not
function, I was tired. After three months I stopped taking them and I
was sick, I was becoming addicted.”

Her 89-year-old grandmother, “a very conventional old Polish lady,”
even used marijuana to relieve arthritis pain after hearing about it on
CNN, she said. It was around the time Michigan voters approved medical
marijuana.

“She medicated with it and felt pretty darn good,” Katie said. “It
helped her arthritis and helped her gain weight. She asked her doctor
about it, and her doctor laughed at her.”

Her grandmother died a year ago and Katie and other family members took
care of her at home in her final weeks. Hospice workers gave them
liquid morphine, which they administered orally to help alleviate her
pain.

“It made her vomit and she said ‘it makes me feel funny,’” she said.
“It was just really tough on all of us. Morphine is serious business,
and marijuana is a natural substance. God put it here.”

Chronicle/Cory MorseNigel Douglas, 28, of Muskegon is registered with the state of Michigan to use marijuana for medical purposes. Douglas has cerebral palsy and experiences back pain after being struck by a car when he was 14 years old.‘Go get yourself educated’

Like Martin, Douglas said his long-time family doctor declined to help
him apply for a medical marijuana user card so he sought out Kenewell
of Clinic for Compassionate Care. Kenewell came to the area in
September and gave Douglas the recommendation and he received his card
last fall. Douglas has since referred more than 100 people to Kenewell.

A graduate of Reeths-Puffer High School, Douglas moved back to the
Muskegon area in 2006. He told his regular doctor he smoked marijuana
to medicate prior to the passage of medical marijuana legislation. His
doctor said he was willing to give him a recommendation, until the time
came to actually do so.

Douglas does not like the side effects or addictive qualities of many painkillers on the market.

“It’s not for me,” he said of the pills. “My doctor told me to go to
the pain clinic and get on liquid methadone or OxyContin. That’s one of
the big things about this. People die off that stuff. That’s acceptable
but using marijuana is not. It’s really unfair from the medical
perspective.”

Douglas stopped taking his prescriptions and relies on marijuana to
alleviate pain and help him sleep. He does see concerns with the
current medical marijuana law as far as patients using marijuana along
with prescription medication and not telling their doctors.

A culinary school graduate and past sous chef, Douglas currently works
as a line cook at a local restaurant. He also has a young daughter and
considers himself an upstanding citizen.

He chose to elect a caregiver to grow the marijuana for him due to
safety concerns for his daughter and recommends people develop a legal,
binding contract.

“You really have to find someone you know and trust,” he said. “Do your homework before you sign over those rights.”

Douglas is tired of the fact people can talk about all the prescription
medicine they take, but if he brings up medical marijuana, he sees the
stares of judgment and gets labeled a “pot head.”

“I just wish the general public did not look down on this,” he said.
“Go get yourself educated on the topic, don’t just pass judgment on
everybody.”